Westminster Gazette - Monday 23 June 1902
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HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE.
Wandsworth Common.
Apprehensions are beginning to be expressed of a possible danger to Wandsworth Common. The Commissioners of the Royal Patriotic Fund have a little estate of forty acres or thereabouts adjoining the common - of which it once formed part - on which stands the well-known girls' school. This compact piece of property, the remainder of fifty-two acres purchased from Earl Spencer in 1857 for £3,700 (!) would realise a handsome sum it converted into "eligible building-plots", and there seems to be growing up a suspicion that the Commissioners have some such scheme in view.
The value of the forty acre as an addition to the common would be considerable. The effect of covering the space with bricks and mortar would be to detract seriously from the beauty and utility of the common as it now exists. It is to be hoped that such a result will be averted.
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